1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to computer systems and methods used to process data pertaining to financial assets, such as loans, securities, and so on.
2. Description of Related Art
When considering the purchase or refinance of a home, potential home buyers consult mortgage lenders such as mortgage companies, savings and loans institutions, credit unions, state and local housing finance agencies or the like to obtain the funds necessary to purchase or refinance their homes. These lenders make (originate and fund) mortgage loans directly to home buyers or borrowers.
During the term of the loan, the borrower sends monthly payments in connection with the loan to the lender. The function of receiving monthly payments from borrowers and aggregating the monthly payments with monthly payments from other borrowers is commonly referred to as loan servicing. Because the lender receives a fee from the borrower during the life of the loan for performing such servicing, servicing is commonly thought of as an asset which is separate from the loan asset that is sold to the purchaser. In other words, a loan is commonly thought of as comprising both a loan asset (corresponding to the right to receive principal and interest payments from a borrower) and a servicing asset (corresponding to the right to receive a servicing fee from the borrower, typically configured as part of the interest payment). It may be noted that, in some instances, a lender may not be interested in performing loan servicing itself. In such instances, the lender may sell the loan to an entity commonly referred to as a loan wholesaler, which typically will turn around and sell the loan asset to the purchaser and retain the servicing asset. Accordingly, reference will now be made to a “servicer” as a generic way of referring to lenders (in the situation where the lender sells the loan asset to the purchaser and retains the servicing asset so as to perform servicing itself) and wholesalers (in the situation where the lender sells the loan and servicing assets to a wholesaler, and the wholesaler turns around and sells the loan asset to the purchaser but retains the servicing asset so as to perform loan servicing).
The servicer receives monthly loan payments from the borrower during the term of the loan. Typically, the loan payment is due on the first of the month although in many instances a grace period will also exist (e.g., the borrower may be given until the fifteen of the month to make the loan payment and have the payment be considered timely). At some point after the fifteen day of the month and the fourth day of the following month, the servicer will report servicing data (e.g., data regarding borrower payments) to the purchaser.
Typically, both the servicer and purchaser will maintain data regarding principal and interest payments received from borrowers and resulting payments due to investors. However, there are various reasons why the servicer data and the purchaser data may not be in complete agreement, most of which relate to errors in data of one or both entities. For example, in connection with adjustable rate mortgages (ARMs), the interest rate applied to the mortgage typically changes during the term of the mortgage. As a result, instances arise in which the servicer and the purchaser have different data regarding when or how the interest rate applied to an ARM should change, resulting in differences regarding amounts that should be paid to investors. As a practical matter, such differences in data are typically only identified during the term of the loan, when data of the servicer and data of the purchaser do not agree as to how much interest should have been received from the borrower.
Therefore, a need exists for a system and method for facilitating the submission of information to the purchaser while reducing the number of errors that occur and the number of discrepancies that need to be resolved. Further, a need exists for such a system also configured to allow a user to access data stored by the purchaser, and respond to potential problems.